I spent most of yesterday trying to finish up the first draft of a short story that really needed to be done. I'm discovering, though, that I need frequent breaks when I'm spending long days at the writing mill. I've never really noticed this during my NaNoWriMo sprints, I suppose because I can generally crank out my daily words in one or two sessions. But now that I've moved to much longer days of concentrated writing time, I've found a difference.
Yesterday I thought I'd take a break from one kind of creativity by switching to another, but I needed to set some boundaries so that I wouldn't get swept away and forget to go back to the writing. Therefore I made it a time challenge, too. I decided I would open up Photoshop and give myself twenty minutes to create a desktop wallpaper. One other rule: I had to work with only the brush sets I happened to have open, plus one other I could choose.
It was fun and provided a good break. The result isn't terribly fancy, but I like it and it's on my desktop now. Here it is:

I titled it "Sister Moon."
For Christmas, hubby gave me a new packet of artist trading cards. I think I might start a few of those to work on when I take a timed break, too. The switch from one creative endeavour to another seems to have been better for me than using the time on something more mundane.
Yesterday I thought I'd take a break from one kind of creativity by switching to another, but I needed to set some boundaries so that I wouldn't get swept away and forget to go back to the writing. Therefore I made it a time challenge, too. I decided I would open up Photoshop and give myself twenty minutes to create a desktop wallpaper. One other rule: I had to work with only the brush sets I happened to have open, plus one other I could choose.
It was fun and provided a good break. The result isn't terribly fancy, but I like it and it's on my desktop now. Here it is:
I titled it "Sister Moon."
For Christmas, hubby gave me a new packet of artist trading cards. I think I might start a few of those to work on when I take a timed break, too. The switch from one creative endeavour to another seems to have been better for me than using the time on something more mundane.
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